The Colonel for a moment was nonplussed. He had no consolation for such a catastrophe. The girl seized her handkerchief and rubbed the mark with dainty energy. The red dye was imparted to the handkerchief but the stain was only enlarged.
“Mother’s dress!” she moaned, rubbing distractedly. “Why, she kept it for years in the trunk, waiting for some such time as this to come. And now look at it!”
She raised tragic eyes to the Colonel’s face. He would have delighted in offering her another dress—anything she had chosen to buy. But she was a lady and this he could not do. So he sat looking sympathetically at her, inwardly swearing at the social conventions which made it impossible for him to repair the damage. He felt a man’s pity for the meanness of the disaster that had such a power to darken and blight one poor little girl’s horizon.
“Don’t rub any more,” was all he could say, “I’m afraid it’s only making it worse. Maybe your mother will know of some way of cleaning it.”
The girl made no reply for the moment. He could see that the mishap had completely dashed her spirits. She unpinned the other bunch, which had left an even uglier mark at her throat, and laid them down beside her on the bench.
“What an unlucky evening!” she exclaimed, looking down at them with an air of utter dejection. “Only two people ask me to dance, and the flowers we paid a dollar for spoil my dress, my first party dress. And they all wanted me to come because I was going to have such a good time!”
She looked from her flowers to her stained dress, shaking her head slowly as though words were inadequate to express the direness of the catastrophe. The Colonel was afraid she was going to cry, but she showed no symptom of tears. She seemed a strayed member of the class which is taught to control its lachrymal glands in public and keep its violent emotions out of sight. But her face showed a distress that was to him extremely pitiful.
“Cheer up,” he said. “As far as the dancing goes the evening’s only half over. And partners—you don’t want to dance with these country bumpkins.”
He lowered his voice at the words, which were indeed rank heresy in the democratic purlieus of Foleys, and made a surreptitious gesture which swept the room.
“Who else is there?” said the girl, who did not show any tendency to combat his low opinion of Foleys’ jeunesse dorée. “And when you come to a party you expect to dance.”